Coal Age

NOV 2014

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Hopkins County, Kentucky, reflecting its continued transition to a new mining area, the company said. Although the U.S. coal market remains difficult, Craft said he anticipates the company's results in the last half of this year to be similar to the first half, with Alliance on track for its 14 th straight year of record earnings in 2014. Along with the increased sales and production, Craft said prices also improved in Q3. Alliance received an average sales price of $55.81/ton, up from $54.55/ton, or 2.3%, last year. Since the start of 2014, Alliance has secured new sales for about 18.7 million tons through 2017. The company now has pricing com- mitments for 33.5 million tons in 2015 and 26.1 million tons in 2016. In October, the new longwall mining system at the White Oak No. 1 mine in Hamilton County, Illinois, in which Alliance has a financial interest, started production. The mine is operated by pri- vately owned White Oak Resources. In response to the continued difficult coal market, Craft said Alliance "may have to delay production growth to match the mar- ket." That means a possible slowing in the ramp-up at Gibson South, which began production earlier this year. The mine is tar- geted to produce about 800,000 tons this year and 3.1 million tons in 2015, "operating three production units through the end of 2015 or until the market improves," he said. Alliance has said Gibson South ultimately will produce more than 5 million tons of thermal coal annually for both domestic and export markets. In response to a question, Craft offered an explanation for why Alliance has been able to turn a robust profit when some of its coalfield competitors go out of business or lose money. "We are very focused on the domestic utility market," he said. "A lot of our competitors have a more global view and are in the metallurgical markets. Those markets have been hit harder than domestic steam markets." Many of Alliance's competitors also have more lever- aged balance sheets than it does. In addition, Alliance "positioned ourselves in anticipation of the markets moving to the IB and Northern Appalachia" and away from Central Appalachia, he added. "We were able to secure very low- cost operations with advantages from a transportation standpoint." Kentucky Indicts State Official, Mine Inspector for Bribery A U.S. District Court in eastern Kentucky has issued indictments to state political representative and coal operator Wendell Keith Hall as well as ex-mine reclamation inspector Kelly Shortridge on charges of bribery so that Hall could avoid receiving safety citations. According to a federal grand jury in London, which issued the indictment late last week, Shortridge — who worked for the Kentucky Division of Mine Reclamation and Enforcement and was responsible for enforcing federal mine reclamation laws and regulations from 2006 through 2011 — inspected Hall's mines (under the names on record of Beech Creek Coal and HEI Services) and allegedly ignored violations in exchange for payments totaling more than $46,000. Specifically, the indictment alleges that the two men disguised the payments as consulting fees. Additionally, the scheme was not a recent one; in 2010, they allegedly set up a shell company, DKJ Consulting, in the name of Shortridge's wife and opened a bank account with her as the sole authorized signatory on the account. Hall then used a company he owned, S&K; Properties, to funnel money to Shortridge through DKJ. Shortridge has been additionally charged with lying to the FBI during a July interview for telling agents he was not associated with DKJ and did not know who was associated to it. Additionally, he claimed never to have received money from Hall or S&K; Properties. Lastly, he has been charged with attempting to extort money from Hall; in 2011, he sent Hall a message indicating he would induce another inspector to cite him for serious violations if he did not pay the money owed. "The conduct alleged in the indictment is an unacceptable breach of the public trust," U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of n e w s c o n t i n u e d C A L E N D A R O F E V E N T S December 1-5, 2014: AEMA's 120 th Annual Meeting, Exposition and Short Courses , JA Nugget Casino Resort Sparks, Nevada. Contact: AEMA; Tel: (509) 624-1158; Email: info@miningamerica.org; Web: www.miningamerica.org. January 28-30, 2015: West Virginia Coal Association Coal Mining Symposium , Charleston Civic Center, Charleston, West Virginia. Contact: Email: Sandi Davison, SDavison@wvcoal.com; Website: wvcoal.com. February 1-4, 2015: 41 st Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique , New Orleans, Louisiana. Contact: Web: www.isee.org/2015-conference. February 5-6, 2015: Coaltrans USA , JW Marriot Marquis, Miami, Florida. Contact: Web: www.coaltrans.com/usa. February 10-13, 2015: AED Summit and Condex , Orlando World Center Marriott, Orlando, Florida. Contact: Web: www.aednet.org. February 11-13, 2015: World Trade and Transport Conference , Omni Royal Orleans Hotel French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana. Contact: Mississippi Valley Trade and Transport Council; Website: www.mvttc.com. February 15-18, 2015: 2015 SME Annual Conference & Expo CMA 117 th National Western Mining Conference , Colorado Convention Center, Denver. Contact: Web: www.smean- nualconference.com/. March 1-4, 2015: PDAC 2015 , Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada. Contact: Web: www.pdac.ca/convention. March 6-7,2015: Coaltrans India , Grand Hyatt Goa, Goa, India. Contact: Web: www.coal- trans.com. April 16-17, 2015: Coaltrans China , Sofitel Beijing, Beijing, China. Contact: Web: www.coaltrans.com. April 27-29, 2015: Coal Prep 2015 Conference , Lexington Center, Lexington, Kentucky. Contact: Web: www.coalprepshow.com. May 10-13, 2015: CIM Convention, Montreal , Quebec. Contact: CIM; Web: http://con- vention.cim.org/. May 17-19, 2015: Haulage and Loading 2015 , Wigwam Resort, Phoenix, Arizona. Contact: Email: tfearney@mining-media.com; Web: www.haulageandloading.com. June 7-10, 2015: CoalTrans Asia , BICC, Bali, Indonesia. Contact: Web: www.coaltrans.com. June 16-18, 2015: Longwall USA Exhibition and Conference , The David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Contact: Email: tfearney@mining- media.com; Web: www.longwallusa.com. September 16 - 18, 2015: Bluefield Coal Show , Brushfork Armory-Civic Center, Bluefield, West Virginia. Contact: Web: www.bluefieldchamber.com/bluefield-coal-show. 16 www.coalage.com November 2014

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